


Salad Days

by MrProphet



Series: Brides of Dracula [2]
Category: Dracula - Bram Stoker
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 03:54:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10689237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	Salad Days

On a cold, winter's night, a coach rattled through the Borgo Pass, steam rising from the flanks of the horses. The young coachman whipped his team hard, driving them almost past endurance in his desperation to clear the Pass before moonrise.

A stick wrapped on the hatch and the voice of the Baron rose through the cold air. “Slow down, man! You'll have us over the edge.”

“Sorry, Herr Baron,” the coachman replied, but he did not let up an inch. “Better to be out of this accursed place,” he muttered.

“Oh, how right you are,” the young woman at his side agreed.

He stared in horror, knowing that the seat beside him had been empty for the entire journey, the regular guard having taken ill and no replacement available, least of all a beautiful, fair-haired girl in a dark cloak. She looked back, locked her eyes on his and reached out to take the reins from his frozen hands.

The coach slowed to a halt and the Baron called up in anger. The coachman made no reply, unable to tear his gaze from the girl's sweet, brown eyes. Angrily, he threw open the door and pulled his considerable bulk up to glower at his driver.

“What the devil...?” he began, catching sight of the girl, but before he could say any more he was dragged backwards and flung to the ground. He fell amid the snow and struggled to rise, but a second woman, lithe and dark, knelt astride his chest, pinning his arms with her knees. She groaned in a show of disgust disappointment. “Why do I always get the fat ones?”

With a wild cry, a pale woman leaped from the coach. “Unhand my husband!” she demanded, but before she could take two steps a swirl of moonlight dazzled her, and a second later a red-haired woman dressed in fox furs had her by the throat, pinning her to the side of the coach.

“You're just greedy, Dominique,” the redhead replied. “And you know you love that fatty richness.”

With a fierce crack, the far door of the coach was torn from its frame and a tall, powerful man, with dark hair in a widow's peak, dragged a frail child from the seats.

The redhead glanced through the carriage. “Would you like this one, Master?” she asked. “She squirms.”

The man looked at her with melancholy, bloodshot eyes. “No, Matilde,” he said, cradling the thin girl against his chest. “This will suffice for me. Drink deeply, my children; my loves.”

The coachman cried out in a kind of ecstasy, his head thrown back as the blonde girl suckled at his throat. 

Dominique glanced up at her with a sneer. “Soft chit.”

“Leave Iulia to her romance,” Matilde commanded. “Attend to your own... before he gets cold.”

Dominique shrugged and looked down at the Baron, shivering in the snow. She liked her lips with a long, red tongue, then arched her back like a weasel as she struck, sinking her fangs into his fat neck and drawing a pitiful, whimpering cry.

“Please,” the Baroness begged. Matilde ignored her, eyes on the Master even as she flexed her mouth, cracking the joints of her jaw open; even as she drove her fangs into the sides of the woman's neck.

The Master settled himself on a milestone, watching his brides at their feed with a wistful expression. He caught Matilde watching him, forced a smile and bent to the child's neck, but he suckled without vitality and there was none of the old, diabolical twinkle in his crimson eyes.

Matilde closed her eyes and tried to focus on the Baroness, but in her worry her jaws strained too hard, crushing the thin, pale neck with the force of a bear trap. She let the mangled corpse fall.

Behind her, Dominique gorged wantonly on the fat Baron. Above, Iulia was indulging in her little fantasy of romance. They were both young; neither of them saw the change in the Master. Neither saw that these midnight feasts would soon come to an end. 

The Master's strength was still great, but his appetite was waning. Soon he would have no enthusiasm for the hunt at all and it would be nothing but stringy peasants and the occasional lost traveller. No handsome young men for Iulia or fat nobles for Dominique.

The Master had let the child fall and she lay dead or dying in the snow, blood oozing unconsumed from her throat.

The happy, carefree nights were over.


End file.
